Co-founder to step aside at recovery agency Amethyst

Ginny O'Keeffe, a founder of Amethyst Inc., an addiction-recovery program that has helped thousands of central Ohio women, plans to retire from the agency after 30 years.

Alan Johnson, The Columbus Dispatch

Ginny O’Keeffe, a founder of Amethyst Inc., an addiction-recovery program that has helped thousands of central Ohio women, plans to retire from the agency after 30 years.

It was not a decision made easily.

“Having the honor and privilege of being with these women and completing this awesome journey is the reason I get up in the morning,” she said. “I don’t plan to leave totally. This is my family."

But O’Keeffe, 68, will officially retire as Amethyst’s chief executive officer on June 30, 30 years after she and eight other “founding mothers” of the organization met as they individually struggled with alcoholism and addiction. They collectively decided that women needed more help than they were getting, and especially a place to live while they recovered.

Amethyst was created in 1984 when the first three women moved into a small house in Clintonville donated by one of the founders. A few years later, the agency was certified as a residential treatment provider by the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services.

O’Keeffe, a native New Yorker, said she now looks back and sees that she has spent “almost half of my life building the dream into a program that has saved the lives of thousands of women and broken the cycle of addiction, poverty and violence in several generations.”

“It’s been a journey,” she said. “When you’ve been in leadership for a long time, you know it’s time to pass it on.”

Margo Spence, president of First Step Home, a Cincinnati facility for women in recovery, called O’Keeffe “a very passionate individual who I consider to be a mentor. She has always been committed to the success of women in recovery from drugs and alcohol.”

The agency has grown to encompass 140 housing units, mostly apartments, where women live in a monitored situation, ensuring they get treatment and remain free from alcohol and drugs.

“For me, the rewarding part is being part of the journey of these amazing women who changed their lives and the lives of their children so they will not be the clients of tomorrow,” O’Keeffe said.

O’Keeffe said she plans to remain involved as an advocate.

ajohnson@dispatch.com

@ohioaj

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